The European Union outperforms New Zealand, Australia, and China in terms of innovation output, but still lags behind countries like Switzerland, the United States, and South Korea. Sweden and Germany are the best performers in the EU, followed by Finland and Ireland.

This is the latest finding published in a JRC report on the Innovation Output Indicator (IOI), a composite indicator that measures innovation performance for 46 countries including EU Member States, the EU bloc as a whole, and selected EFTA, OECD and emerging economies.

According to the JRC report on the IOI, the EU recorded an 8% increase in its IOI between 2012 and 2022. This marks an improvement in innovation output performance, which is comparable to those reported by the US (10%). By contrast, China reported a nearly 30% IOI improvement in the same period and looks poised to soon close the innovation gap with the EU.

Read more